Come In
by Twinings
Summary: I thought watching Batman take down the Joker one night was the most fun I would ever have at work. Boy howdy, was I wrong.
1. The Setup

I don't own Batman or any of the Rogue's Gallery. Good thing, too, because I would totally loose them on my city.

I don't own Lai Lai, but I do work there. It's the best job ever. Of course, on a slow night, when my boss/cook type is making daiquiris out of sheer boredom, I have lots of time to think. That guy on the phone who ordered the Two Entree Special...I wonder what he looks like, face to face. The guy in the hat who complimented my hair...the belligerent red-haired vegetarian...that woman who made the quip about eating fried cats...the kid who comes in every Thursday night and stares at me...

Who are these people? Who are they really?

You may have guessed that most of this story is merely a fictionalized account of my actual job. But, hey...the Joker would be so disappointed in me for trying to explain.

* * *

Come In

You're going to laugh at me when I tell you this, but I moved to Gotham for the Chinese food. You see, I'm originally from a little town called Smallville. You wouldn't think a little farming community in the middle of nowhere would have any decent Chinese food, but less than a mile from my school was Panda Chinese Restaurant, with the best sesame chicken on earth. I used to hang out there after school, playing rummy with Rui, the owners' daughter, which wasn't always easy because she spoke very little English, and I spoke no Chinese.

Then, my senior year of high school, my dad got a job in Metropolis, so we just packed up and moved across the country. Boy, was I pissed. Not a decent General Tsao's chicken for miles around. (Dad says you can always judge a place by their General Tsao.) What's more, in the year I lived there, I never got a single glimpse of Superman, a major disappointment to all my friends back home. I did meet his girlfriend, the maniac reporter, whose partner was another Smallville native—small world. He's a real wimp, that Clark Kent, but a nice guy.

Well, my dad drove me over to Gotham one weekend to have a look at the GU campus. I hated it. The city was dark and dirty and ugly and it smelled funny, and no one looked happy to be there. I was feeling bratty and I wanted to go home to Smallville.

Then I heard a bell ring as someone opened a door, and someone called out, "Xie xie! Come again!" And mixed with the smutty industrial smell of Gotham City was the heavenly scent of General Tsao. I looked up and read the sign above the door: Lai Lai Chinese Restaurant.

It was a sign. Six months later, I not only lived on campus, but I worked at Lai Lai.

They were a little nervous about hiring me. It was the hair. I always wanted to cut it short and dye it some weird color, but in a town like Smallville, that Just Isn't Done. So I did it in Metropolis, and hardly anyone raised an eyebrow. Then in Gotham, suddenly everyone was staring at me. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why Gothamites would be bothered by a tall, skinny girl with short green hair.

I came highly recommended by my old boss, though, so they decided to take a chance with me. I promised them they wouldn't regret it.

After I had worked there for about a month, one night I saw a bright purple limousine go flying past the door, followed by the Batmobile. Twenty seconds later, a mob of police cars streaked past, sirens blaring.

That was enough to convince me that Gotham had been a good choice.

A few minutes later, coming from the other direction, I saw an absurdly tall, thin, green-haired man in a purple zoot suit running down the sidewalk like—if you'll excuse the expression—a bat out of hell.

Something caught his leg and he tripped. As he fell, he happened to look in the window. He saw me, smiled, and waved.

Holy cow. The _Joker_ waved at _me._

Before he even hit the ground, a black shadow swirled over him, and then they were both gone.

The smegging Joker! The Joker waved at me! And I saw Batman!

Gotham was so much cooler than Metropolis.

I thought that was the most exciting thing that was going to happen to me.

And it was. Until three weeks later, when the Joker busted out of Arkham.

That's when the real fun began.


	2. The Joker

I was just standing there, minding my own business, when the bell rang out as someone opened the door. I looked up, prepared to say my usual, "Welcome to Lai Lai!"

The words died on my lips.

"_Love_ your hair," the Joker said, leaning over the cash register to grin at me.

I've been told my smile is my best feature. I smile when I'm happy; I smile more when I'm not. I smile constantly at work. I've never been good at talking to my customers, but I don't want them to think I'm not happy to see them. So I smile.

A big, friendly smile spread across my face now.

"Thanks. I like your…tie." (His own face was printed on the tie, in all its garish glory. I had seen them sold in a novelty shop just down the street. They weren't very popular.)

"What's your name, pretty lady?" he asked, sounding an awful lot like some of the customers I used to have at Waffle House—the amorous drunken trucker type. "Are you married?"

I blush a _lot_ when I'm embarrassed. My regulars back in Smallville used to flirt with me mercilessly just to see my face turn red. For a minute there, I could have sworn that the Joker was just Steve or Roger in a clown mask.

Maybe that's what gave me the courage to banter with him instead of curling up under the buffet table and praying.

"I don't believe in marriage. It's just the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two." He giggled. I decided that was a good thing. Keep him happy, try to do my job, and maybe he would go away and no one would get hurt. "I don't think you came in here just to chat with little old me, Mr. Jay. What can I get you?"

He seemed surprised. I guess most cashiers are a little more intimidated by him, and probably don't offer to open their registers until he starts demanding money. It actually never occurred to me that he might rob us.

"What's the best thing on your menu?"

"Mongolian Chicken," I said without hesitation.

"I'll take it."

When I rang him up, he gave me that classic "you've got to be kidding" look. Then, cackling, he gave me six bloodstained dollar bills, one of them marred by what turned out to be a bullet hole.

"Will the bank take this?" I asked.

"Do I look like I know what a bank would take?"

Right, of course. This was a guy who made withdrawals, not deposits. I gave him his change like a good little girl.

I've never seen Mongolian Chicken cooked so fast.

I bagged it up and gave it to him, trying not to actually touch him as I did so. I mean, it's one thing to be able to say you've been touched by the Joker, but something else entirely to actually _be_ touched by the Joker. If he hadn't been wearing gloves, I don't think I could have done it. Good mood or not, this was the Joker in all of his face-melty goodness.

"Do you need any sauce with that? Chopsticks? A fork?"

"No, thanks, Fran." He was halfway to the door before I realized I had never actually told him my name.

I figured I could either have a panic attack, or give him a nice, friendly goodbye like I did with all my other customers.

Judging by the look on my boss's face, it wouldn't be a good idea to say, "Thank you, come again."

So I said, "Tell your friends."

Smeg.

I should have stuck with, "Have a nice day." The classics never die.


	3. Poison Ivy

The very next day, I got another new customer…a woman in a clown suit.

My boss ran and hid in the kitchen. The delivery guy hauled ass to his car.

I picked up my pen and ticket book and got ready to take her order.

"I'm just waiting for someone," she said. Great. I knew what that meant.

"Can I get you something to drink while you wait?"

She sat there, sipping her soda. One by one, my other customers thought of other places they needed to be. Pretty soon, she was the only one left.

I was on the phone, taking a delivery order from a friend of mine, when the other woman came in.

She was a stunningly beautiful woman, a dead ringer for Bettie Page, except for her coloring. Gorgeous red hair contrasted sharply with the soft, pale green of her skin. She wore beautiful strands of ivy around her wrists and neck like priceless jewelry.

I forgot everything and stared at her, feeling totally inadequate.

"You still there, Space Monkey?" Parker asked, recalling my attention to the phone. (Space Monkey, of course, had been his nickname for me ever since we were classmates at Reeve High back in Metropolis. It was the hair. He had been very impressed with a girl brave enough to shave her head.)

"Sorry," I said. "Code green." I hung up on him (I already knew exactly what he wanted and where he lived, and probably could have come up with his credit card number if I had to) and went to greet Poison Ivy.

"Do you serve vegetarian entrees?" she asked.

"Yes, we do." I reached for a menu, expecting her to ask for help making a selection.

"Why?" she demanded. "You won't eat the flesh of those filthy beasts, but you think it's all right to exploit poor, defenseless plants for your own satisfaction?"

"Give her a break, Red," said the clown girl.

"Harl, this is ridiculous!"

"Well, _she_ ain't in charge of what they sell." The clown girl had a nervous-sounding voice at odds with her perky smile.

"Would you like to try our wontons, ma'am?" I asked. "They're made of cream cheese. And we have really good tea." I've never met anyone who could turn down a nice cup of authentic Chinese green tea with a little ginger, oh, god, I want some tea.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Poison Ivy.

The tea tamed the little venus flytrap, and she was chatting happily with the clown girl when the Joker came in. I could see right off that sparks were going to fly. I had to do something fast if I wanted to have a place to work the next day.

"Welcome back, Mr. Jay," I said. "How was the Mongolian Chicken?" Just distract him. Just get his mind off of blowing things up.

"Let me put it this way: as long as you keep making food that good, I promise not to destroy your little restaurant. Not even for a laugh."

"Thanks. I know how much that means. Would you like the same thing tonight, or would you like to try something different? The Sesame Chicken has been very popular tonight."

"Pooh? Do you want Sesame Chicken?" he asked the clown girl. Poison Ivy got this Look on her face. I started to duck.

A bag of cheese wontons hit the counter near my hand. I turned just in time to see my boss disappearing back into the kitchen.

"Kuo Tsuey! That's no way to treat good wontons!" Seriously, throwing wontons is like putting the holy grail in the dishwasher. She never would have done such a thing to a normal customer's food.

I gave Poison Ivy an extra fortune cookie to make up for it.

"Call me, Harl," she said sternly before she left. "We'll have lunch."

As soon as she was gone, the clown girl turned into a completely different person, latching onto the Joker like an alien facehugger.

"I don't know how you put up with her," the Joker said. He looked severely annoyed, whether by Poison Ivy or by his girlfriend's clinging, I didn't know.

They ate in-store that night. I had no more customers that evening. I kissed any hope of getting decent tips goodbye the moment I realized this was going to become a pattern.

"See you around, Space Monkey," the Joker said as he escorted Harley out the door.

This time, I did crawl under the buffet table to cry. But I did manage to wait until he was gone, and I never lost my friendly smile.


	4. The Riddler

"Hey, Space Monkey," Parker greeted me. For the first time ever, the nickname didn't make me giggle. "Bad day?"

"The _Joker_ called me Space Monkey last night. I'm a little freaked." As we talked, I wrote down his order without being told: the Two Entrée Special with Mongolian Beef and Sweet and Sour Chicken, fried rice, and iced tea. My customers are so predictable.

Well, maybe not all of them. A shrill giggle pulled my attention over to Harley and Ivy, sitting together in the far corner. The few other customers brave enough to stick around were sitting as far away from the pair as humanly possible.

I had almost done something incredibly stupid when I took Harley's order.

I asked her the same question that I ask every time I take any order: "Do you want steamed or fried rice?"

And the answer she gave me was the one I get all too often, mostly from sorority girls and other forms of nearly-sentient life: "White rice."

Everyone thinks I'm such a nice person. I'm _not._ White rice has shown me that I'm not very nice at all. You see, the words "white rice" have been enough to induce in me fantasies of the most brutal forms of torture involving broom handles, swiss army knives, and cayenne pepper, among other things.

Steamed rice and fried rice are both white rice. They! Are! Both! White! Rice! Steamed rice is white rice that has been _steamed!_ Fried rice is white rice that has been _fried!_ They are _both white rice!_ For the love of all that is shiny, if white rice were a separate choice, I would smegging well _offer_ it as a separate choice, wouldn't I?

I almost told her that. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I had let myself vent.

Fortunately, I'm always a professional.

I was making Parker's tea when another new customer came in. He was a pretty average-looking guy, dressed in street clothes, which would have made me feel better except that Harley was in street clothes, too. For all I knew, I was about to gain another supervillain stalker.

How's that for fast-acting paranoia?

"Good morning," I said. "Can I help you?"

"Can you?" He smirked. I wished, not for the first time, that I had the authority to smack assholes around without losing my job.

"How about Kung Pao Beef? That's always good." He looked adorably amused. I took that as a yes. "Do you want steamed or fried rice?"

"Yes."

If I had been holding a pencil, I would have snapped it then. There's only one answer I hate worse than "white rice."

"That was not a yes or no question, sir," I said with my biggest smile ever. Parker took one look at me and found something to do on the other side of the room.

"But yes _is_ an answer, isn't it?"

"How…about…fried…rice?" I said sweetly. I had more questions to ask him, but I decided to just answer them myself. I wouldn't normally do that, but I was _not_ having a good day. "Your total is $5.88." He handed me a credit card. "Can I see your ID?" I asked automatically. He just looked at me, amused. "Nothing personal. I have to ask everyone, Mr…" I read the name on the credit card: Katherine Kane. "Okay, who are you?" Then I realized the point of the question and answer routine. "The Riddler."

"Very good. And you're the Space Monkey." I dug my fingernails into my palm.

"What do you want?" (I felt a little safer antagonizing him. He didn't seem like the type to fly off the deep end just because a cashier was a little rude.)

"I want some of your famous Kung Pao Beef."

"Did the Joker tell you to come here?" I demanded.

"You told him to tell his friends. He told everyone he knows." I felt the floor drop out from under me. "You're going to be seeing a lot of new faces around here."

"Oh, super. Your total is still $5.88." He looked pointedly at the stolen credit card he had given me. I waited.

"Oh, fine. Spoilsport." He paid cash.


	5. TwoFace

At 2:00, thirty minutes before closing and about thirty seconds before I should have gotten off, we got another one.

There was no question who this one was.

"Welcome to Lai Lai," I said to Two-Face. Now that's a guy you don't piss off no matter how bad your day has been.

I had never seen him before, but…everyone knows about Two-Face. He's one of those instantly recognizable Gotham thangs, like the Batsignal.

It had never occurred to me that the right side of his face would be so beautiful. Before the accident, he must have been ungodly handsome, the kind of guy who made you stop and stare when you passed him on the street, the kind of guy all the girls were in love with. It made the scars all the more tragic.

I wanted to give him a hug.

"What are you staring at?" he growled at me.

"Just waiting to take your order," I said, smiling at him for real. "I recommend the Two Entrée Special. It comes with Sweet and Sour Chicken and another entrée of your choice, with rice and a drink." He looked interested. Thank God. "If you like soup, we have Hot and Sour. It's my favorite."

"Sounds good," he said, and I grinned. I love it when they make it easy on me.

"What would you like for your second entrée?"

"What do you like?"

"Mongolian Beef. Or General Tsao's Chicken." Oops. I could have slapped myself. I knew better than to offer him two choices.

He took out that famous scarred silver dollar and flipped it. Holy cow. That was the first time it really hit me how momentous all this was. I mean, most people in Gotham live their whole lives without ever seeing any of these people, but I…I had just made Two-Face flip a coin, and I was going to live to tell the tale.

"Mongolian Beef," he decided.

I had to ask him another question. I almost couldn't do it.

"Steamed or fried rice?"

The coin landed scarred side up.

"Fried rice."

"And what would you like to drink?" I almost couldn't ask it without laughing.

"Iced tea and a water."

"Is it…" I tried _really_ hard not to giggle. "For here or to go?"

Flip.

"To go."

I held my breath hard while I rang him up. He paid with three $2 bills. I gave him two pennies as change. He tipped me with two silver dollars.

I didn't quite make it home that afternoon before the giggles hit me. I walked up the stairs to my dorm room, laughing hysterically. I laughed until I cried. And then I cried until I started laughing again.

I decided it was time to find a new job.


	6. Catwoman

I came back to work at 5:00 for the dinner shift. The minute I unlocked the front door, the Joker came inside.

"Hi, there, Space Monkey," he said as cheerfully as ever. "You aren't trying to leave me, are you?"

I said something slightly less intelligent than, "Whuh?"

"Looking for a new job? You're not the kind of girl who would run away from her responsibilities, are you?"

"Um…no. Of course not." I ran away then, but only as far as my side of the counter.

"Good. Because I would _really _hate to see you go." He cackled, and I decided to give up on looking for a new job. I would hate to be the reason Lai Lai burned to the ground, almost as much as I would hate to get a cyanide pie in the face.

"What can I get you tonight, Mr. Jay?" I asked, adding a silent, _please don't hurt me._

He ordered Cashew Chicken, and I said "gesundheit," and he laughed, and I prayed for that to be the most exciting thing that happened to me that night.

It wasn't, of course.

At 6:00, a woman came in and started ranting at me about that old story about chopping up stray cats for Sesame Chicken.

"That's just an urban legend," I explained. "Our Sesame Chicken is made of _chicken."_

It took a good twenty minutes to get her to believe me. Fortunately, there was no line forming behind her. The store just wasn't as popular as it used to be, although delivery was busier than ever.

Finally, she allowed me to serve her some Sesame Chicken. She paid with a credit card. I checked her ID, which surprised me by matching up just fine. Could I possibly have gotten a new customer who was just a regular Joe? (Or Joan, as the case may be?)

It took me a month to figure out who Selina Kyle really was.


	7. The Scarecrow

Around 7:00, I got another new one. This one didn't look like he could possibly be one of Them.

Well, I've been wrong before.

"Hello, Space Monkey," said the tall, thin man in the shabby suit. There was nothing at all intimidating about him. He wore glasses, and his jacket had those patches on the elbows. But when he called me by my stupid nickname, I got the urge to run away and hide.

"Scarecrow," I guessed. He looked pleased that I'd heard of him. "My real name is Frances."

"Jonathan Crane." He stared at my hair. "Most people would be afraid to look like that in Gotham City. Are you fearless, child?"

"No, just ignorant. It never occurred to me who I was imitating until it was too late."

"You could have changed the color."

"He might take it as an insult. I'm really not that brave, Professor Crane…it is Professor, isn't it?"

"You haven't run away yet. You may be braver than you think. Anyway, it would be fun to find out for sure, wouldn't it?" He smiled at me. "You know, your eyes are lovely when you're terrified."

I tried to smile back, but even I have limits.

"C-can I get you anything?" My voice came out as a little squeak.

"I would love to have you as a test subject. Do you think we could set something up?"

"I'd rather not, thanks." Always be polite. _Always_ be polite. Manners will get you far in life. Dear sweet Jesus, be polite.

"Oh, all right. Some other time, then." He looked so mild-mannered. I honestly can't explain why I felt so scared of him.

"Would you like anything to eat?" I had to ask. It's my _job._ I guess it's just the Smallville in me. Besides, he didn't look like a guy who got regular meals.

"No."

"Nothing? Not even an egg roll?" He looked at me strangely. I managed to smile this time.

"Have you lost your fear? That was fast." He took a notepad and a stubby pencil out of his pocket and wrote something down. "How do you feel right now?"

"Like I'm about to throw up," I said honestly. "But I also feel like I'll have failed my Waffle House trainers if I let you leave without selling you something."

"And that frightens you?"

"No…it just doesn't feel right. We have really good egg rolls," I said hopefully. The front door opened. He didn't notice. I made "go away" eyes at the new customer, who just happened to be my roommate. She ignored my signals.

"Hi, Frances," she said, completely oblivious. The Scarecrow turned to look at her. Oh, crappity crap.

"Hi, Sally," I said. "I was just telling _Professor Crane_ how good our egg rolls are." She didn't pick up on the name. Crap, crappity crap.

"Oh, yeah, they're great. You should really try one. And the Chicken and Broccoli. I can't get enough of that ginger sauce."

Why did she have to be so clueless and friendly?

He took her advice. (The part of me that thought he needed a sandwich momentarily took over and slipped him an extra scoop of rice, and then went to gibber in the darkest corner of my mind.) Their food came out at the same time, and they left together, chatting like old friends.

By the next day, my dorm room was a single. Poor Sally. She still hasn't completely recovered.

But I'm skipping ahead.


	8. Batman

I was still telling myself that Sally would be okay when I left work that night.

Then, following my usual routine, I started telling myself that _I_ would be okay.

Due to some crappy building design, when I left Lai Lai, I had to walk through a dark alley to get back to campus. Every night, I told myself it was time for me to get a car. Every night I made it home safely and decided to procrastinate just one more day.

Tonight, as I left Lai Lai with a box of Pepper Steak in my hands and my keys on a cord around my neck, I was a bit more freaked than usual.

I thought I saw movement. The Joker? A shadow. The Scarecrow? I heard a sound like a footstep. Poison Ivy? Something like breathing. The Riddler? Two-Face? Someone _else?_

I felt like an idiot even as I broke into a run. And I felt oddly justified when something caught me from behind.

I tried to scream bloody murder before the hand clamped over my mouth. I tried to fight him off, whoever he was. My dinner spilled all over the alley. I tried elbowing him in the chest. It was like hitting a brick wall.

"Hold still," said a voice of gravelly doom. I felt him move, heard a _thwap,_ and suddenly we were flying through the air. I screamed against his hand. "Go limp." Gravelly doom!

He deposited me on Lai Lai's roof, and carefully let me go. I spun around to face…Batman.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I screamed. "Do you get off on snatching girls from dark alleys and…and…you people are all _insane_!"

"I don't want to hurt you," he said. I knew that. That's why I was feeling brave enough to scream at him, since I couldn't very well scream at anyone else.

"You made me spill my Chinese food, Bat-tard!" I don't know where that one came from, but it didn't seem to faze him.

"I'm sorry. I just want to talk to you."

"About?"

He scowled at me. Gravelly doom!

"You've been getting a lot of new customers at Lai Lai's these last few days." He mispronounced it. Doof.

"It's lye-lye, not lay-lay. And there's no s. It doesn't _belong_ to some guy named Lai Lai. It's not _possessive._ Lai Lai is Chinese for 'come here' or 'come in'—literally 'come come.' Okay?"

"There's no need to get upset about it."

"Well, I am upset! Why can't anyone get it right?" The look on his face silenced me. Okay, so he was one of the good guys, but I should have remembered that he was no boy scout. Well, I hadn't been having such a great day.

"I want to talk to you about your new customers. Why are they coming here all at once?"

"We're not a fence, or a drug ring, or whatever you probably think we are. We're just a Chinese restaurant. They've all been coming in because of the Joker. He likes the place…because of me, I think. Because of my hair, and because I get his jokes."

"_Why_ would you do your hair like the Joker?" he asked, and I felt this irrational flash of anger.

"For the last time, I didn't do it _like the Joker,_ I did it _like I wanted it_! Can I not just _like_ the color green?"

"Not in Gotham."

"Then _you_ explain to him why I'm suddenly out of the Joker fan club. I'm sure he'll take it well if you break it to him gently. Until then, I stay green."

"You're scared of him," Batman said.

"I'm afraid of a lot of people. What's your point?"

"Are you afraid of me?"

"Of course I am. You're Batman. The Dark Smegging Knight. You strike terror in the hearts of everyone you meet. Plus you have a habit of dangling your human yo-yos from rooftops and, oh, hey, lookee where we are."

That actually amused him. Yarrg.

Well, he pumped me for information, and I told him everything that had happened between me and my new customers. I didn't even have to be his yo-yo.

Then he escorted me home. Fairly cool of him.

I had frozen waffles for dinner and sat up all night waiting for Sally to come in. She wasn't as lucky as I was. She never made it home.


	9. The Mad Hatter

I skipped all my classes the next day. There's only so much I can deal with people, and I wanted to save myself up for work. Something told me tonight was going to be critical.

My first special customer of the day took one look at me, swept off his top hat, bowed, and said, "Your hair wants cutting." Since I had just finished rereading _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,_ I smiled at the Mad Hatter and offered him more tea.

I wasn't quite as friendly as I usually am, but I did like this one. He was just cute, and I do admire a fellow tea drinker. I mean real tea, the kind that comes in a teacup and fogs up your glasses when you take a sip.

I love our green tea, and so did he, which made me happy. I may not have been as scared of him as I was of some of the others, but still…the Mad Hatter. Mad plus villain equals…yarrg. I definitely wanted to keep him satisfied.

The Joker came in while I was still making the Mad Hatter's tea. He gave me this incredibly expressive smile that conveyed to me without words that I was in Trouble.

"Hey, Space Monkey. Been talking to any flying rodents lately?"

"He came to me," I said. "He didn't like my hair. I don't think he likes Chinese food, either." The Joker didn't find that as funny as I'd hoped. I tried to stay cool as I gave the Hatter his tea.

"What did he want?" The Joker's voice was perfectly calm. I knew just enough to recognize this as a danger signal.

"He asked me some questions about what you and the others are doing here. He thinks the restaurant is a front for something else."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I told him to try the Mongolian Beef."

He laughed at that, and for the moment, the pressure was off. I still did my best to keep a smile on my face while he was there.

Poison Ivy came in for a cup of tea. I knew she would be hooked after the first one.

Then came the Riddler, who made me guess the answer to every question I asked. It wasn't quite as annoying the second time around.

Then came Parker, with a couple of guys I knew vaguely from class, Dick Grayson and Jeph Something. I almost hugged my pal, Parker, when he let me know he was planning to stick around until the end of the shift and walk me home.

I did hug my delivery driver just before I sent him out with an order for Mr. "Janus" at 22 Duo Drive. Honestly, you'd think they would have changed the name of that street when Two-Face came along.

My next customer was Jonathan Crane.

"Good evening, Space Monkey."

"Scarecrow," I said as politely as I could. We stared at each other for a little while—I think I made him happy by breaking eye contact first.

"I've learned everything I can from your friend. She's recovering nicely in the nearest hospital."

"And now you want me?" I said, trying not to panic. He looked a little sheepish.

"Actually…"

I smiled at him.

"You want more Chicken and Broccoli, don't you?"

I gave him an extra scoop of rice. Old habits die hard.


	10. The Clock King

"Mr. Tetch, would you like some more tea?" I asked. It was nearly 9:00, and he was my last customer, not counting Parker and his friends. I wasn't going to ask him to leave, but I was really looking forward to locking the door.

He had been drinking tea for hours. I couldn't believe he was still sitting there, not squirming.

The door opened one more time, and I resisted the urge to just walk out.

In walked a tall, thin man in a suit and funny-looking glasses, nothing special at all in Gotham City, but I knew him..

The Clock King (of course the Clock King, why not the Clock King) tipped his bowler to the Mad Hatter and then managed to look down his nose at me while he ran a gloved finger across the countertop. The results didn't please him.

I hate that type.

But he turned out to be an all right guy. We have some things in common. I may not be time-obsessed, but I do have a healthy respect for accuracy and efficiency. That, by the way, was not a trait that served me well in food service.

"Good evening," I said. The time was 8:55. "How can I help you?"

"You close at 9:00," he said stiffly. "What will be ready by then?"

Oh, so that's how it was going to be.

"Well, as you can see, we have rice and soup already on the buffet table. Wontons take about two minutes to cook, egg rolls take three, and Sweet and Sour Chicken takes just a little longer. If you want something else, Mongolian Chicken tends to come up pretty quickly. Just don't order dumplings or Teriyaki Chicken; they take the longest. But whatever you order, we won't kick you out if it's not ready by 9:00 on the dot." Much as I might have enjoyed doing so with the business end of a broom, some days.

"I would prefer to be gone by then." (Then come earlier next time, I thought. But I knew I wasn't being charitable. At least he wasn't trying to make me stay late.)

"I appreciate that," I said with a smile. "Sweet and Sour Chicken, then?"

"Yes. With white rice."

Twitch.

"Steamed rice," I said. He gave me a curious look. "The correct term is steamed rice." He nodded, and I could see that he understood me perfectly. Woot, finally. Good to have a customer who gets it, even if I did have to become Waitress to the Crazies to find him. (Side note: as a cashier, I never actually came out from behind the counter except to clean the tables, and they didn't even make me do that unless _I_ judged it was safe.) "Would you like anything to drink with that?"

"Do you serve coffee here?"

"That would be perfect," I said. "But, no. We have tea, though. It takes three to five minutes to brew, so it should be ready about the same time as your food."

"Hmm," he said with a bit of a sneer.

"We also have soft drinks," I said, although he struck me as a little sophisticated for Mountain Dew. He looked at the drink machine behind me, and then at the sign above my head, which proclaimed 'PEPSI' in big, bold letters against a vivid blue background, and I knew that no matter what he ordered, he was not going to be one of the idiot-types who asked for a 'Coke.'

"I'll have a lemonade," he said.

"Oh." ('Oh' of surprise!) "Good choice." I lived off the lemonade at Waffle House before I got myself addicted to coffee, although of course that was a different brand. "Sweet and Sour Chicken, _steamed_ rice, and one lemonade. Do you need anything else?"

I recognized the look on his face—I had been working there long enough to recognize a supervillain about to start on a major tirade—so I started pressing buttons on the cash register, almost at random, before he could start speaking.

"That'll be $6.63," I said cheerfully.

He paid cash. They always paid cash. That was good, of course, but it totally threw me off my rhythm.

In the weeks before the Joker noticed me (and I suspect that's how I'll always divide my life, Before and After the Joker) I developed a nearly flawless system like an easy dance. Easy in that I fell into it without a thought, and in a dreadfully mundane sort of way, it made me graceful. I would ring up the customer and say the price. Then when Mr. Customer was digging through his wallet, I would turn around and put a scoop of ice in the cup, then glance up at my dear friend, who by this time hopefully would have come up with some form of payment. If cash, I would simply smile and fill up the cup with whatever liquid Mr. Customer desired before taking the cash and making change. If credit, I would take the card and swipe it through the machine, which was quite elderly and probably on its last legs. While the machine was dialing, processing, and printing, I would fill the cup. Then, leaving the filled cup to catch the last drip-drops of carbonated water, I would turn around and retrieve the credit card and receipt and hand them to Mr. Customer. Then, to give him enough time to realize that I wanted him to _sign_ the credit card receipt and give it back to _me_, I would turn back around, fill that last little bit of empty space where the drink had fizzed and died down, and put a lid on the cup if the order was to go. And if they still didn't get it, I could hold the drink hostage until I was paid.

Huzzah. A nearly flawless system. Only very rarely did someone manage to avoid being bludgeoned to death by my subtle hints. Only rarely did I have to tell a customer who had been waiting twenty minutes that, yes, that drink had been there literally the _entire_ time, and only rarely did I end up printing a duplicate credit card receipt and signing it myself because I was fed up with trying to explain what I wanted.

The lack of credit cards threw me off quite a bit.

But the Clock King turned out not to be an idiot of Biblical proportions. He actually waited for me to make his drink and then, wonder of wonders, he took it and sat down. If all my customers were like him, I would have been as good an employee at Lai Lai as I was at the Awful Waffle. I wouldn't have been quite so scared of them if they had all been uptight jerks and not total lunatics.

Unfortunately, the lunatics outnumbered the jerks by a wide margin. And I was getting to the point where I could hardly keep straight who was likely to shoot me if I smiled, and who was likely to shoot me if I _didn't._

I don't know what I would have done without Parker and his friends to keep me sane. When they dropped me off at my dorm that night, I told them that they were all my heroes. The time was 10:38.


	11. The Penguin

The next day was the worst day of my life.

You'll probably understand when I tell you that I hadn't been sleeping well since that day the Joker first noticed me. But when I got home that night, I was so tired I passed out cold.

I had nightmares.

Now, here's the thing. Ever since my first job in Smallville, most of my nightmares have been about work. My feet get stuck to the floor in the middle of the dinner rush, I forget how to work the cash register, my cook goes deaf and makes me scream the orders again and again, that kind of thing. (More than once, I woke the neighbors demanding, "Waffle, one bacon!") At Lai Lai, I dreamed about the customers more than the job itself, but my nightmares were still work-related.

That's probably why this one threw me. I dreamed a Japanese ghost chased me through an apartment building, turned me into a cat with a can of baked beans, and forced me to help him collect more victims by running wildly back and forth through traffic.

Okay, maybe not all that scary on paper. And after the cat part, I was kind of enjoying myself. But I woke up just before 4:00 A.M., freaked. I lay in bed in the dark for a second or two, then pulled a muscle throwing myself at the light switch. I turned toward Sally's bed, hoping she would be awake, but of course she wasn't there at all.

I knew I wasn't going back to sleep, so I thought I'd take a shower and then read, watch TV, or maybe even get in a little studying in the four hours before my first class.

I always keep my keys hanging from the doorknob. On that key ring I have hand sanitizer, chapstick, my library card, the key to my dorm room, the key to my mailbox, the key to the apartment in Metropolis, and an antique brass key I found lying in the street in Smallville.

And, tonight, one more key. The key to a car.

Pinned to my keychain was a note on purple paper in emerald green ink:

"I don't want my favorite Space Monkey assaulted by shadowy characters in dark alleys anymore. From now on, drive to work. –J"

My door was still locked.

The minute I saw the first rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon, I called Parker, who came over with Dick and Jeph. With the three of them as backup, I was brave enough to venture down to the parking lot.

It wasn't hard to tell which car the Joker had meant for me. The violet convertible parked in the most coveted spot just screamed "crazy clown." And there was a bobblehead on the dashboard—a monkey in a space suit.

My key turned smoothly in the lock. Nothing exploded. There were no poison gasses inside, only new car smell.

The guys went over every inch of that car and found absolutely nothing wrong with it. Somehow, that disturbed me more than a bomb or Joker Venom would have. In the glove compartment, I found a bill of sale with my name on it, insurance papers…all the legal stuff.

Wow.

Parker begged me to go to the police. I declined. I wouldn't know what to say to them.

I have this very bad habit of ignoring problems as long as I possibly can in hopes that they'll just go away. And when I say as long as I possibly can, I mean that if something explodes and horribly maims someone, including me, I'll take it to get fixed only when it explodes a second time. Someday I'm going to die a slow and painful death because I don't feel up to going to the doctor.

I know that's not good, and it's come back to bite me more than once. Knowing is half the battle, but not the half that spurs my lazy self to action.

Parker swore to me that the car was safe, and most of me believed him. Why not? After all, if he was wrong…what a way to go.

I wasn't allowed to take guys up to my dorm room, but they did escort me to the mailbox at the bottom of the stairs, and they waited while I opened the week-old letter from my grandmother (I never have been too diligent about checking my messages) and then Parker held me while I cried.

My Maw-Maw—my mother's mother's mother—had died eleven days before, quietly, in her sleep. I wasn't close enough to my mother's side of the family to have known her very well, but I could remember her from my childhood, from Christmas Past, I guess, and as I read Grandmother's letter, all I could think of was that Maw-Maw had arthritis before I was born, and her hair was brown when she was young, and it had been more than eleven days since I had thought of her.

"What do you say we blow off class today?" Parker said when I had calmed down a little. "We'll go to the Iceberg for lunch. I'll drive."

"Good idea," I said. I wasn't anywhere near ready to get in that car and drive anywhere.

I went upstairs to change clothes and found a note on my door saying that my dad had made a wellness check and I needed to call him immediately, which meant that he must have been trying to call me for a few days and gotten worried when I didn't answer the phone. No matter how many times I tried to explain it to him, the man never understood that I spent most of my time at work or in class. If he called the dorm at the same time every day, he just wasn't going to reach me. And I didn't have time to spend hours on the phone with him every day, anyway. (My dad was as bad as a clingy boyfriend, I swear.)

I pressed the button on my answering machine and discovered that I had eleven new messages, all from Dad, of course. He was the only person who ever called me, and I would have recognized his voice even if he hadn't identified himself exactly the same way in every single message.

"Hey, Francie, this is your dad. Call me back as soon as you get this message. I love you." He sounded tired, as he always did on the phone, like he was trying to hold back his annoyance that I wasn't there to answer.

"I love you, too, Dad," I said, as I always said to his messages, as if he could hear me all the way over there in Metropolis. I wondered why he was calling me. Probably not because of Maw-Maw. He wasn't any closer to my mom's family than I was, and he wouldn't be expecting me to go to her funeral, although I hadn't let on to him that I didn't dare miss work for fear that a customer would be offended and torch the place with everyone inside it if I wasn't there.

"Hey, Fran, this is your dad. Give me a call. I need to talk to you."

"If you'd stop talking, I'd call you back now." Except I wouldn't; Parker was waiting for me. But after lunch, before work, I decided I was going to call my dad. And then my grandmother. And then, if I had time, Nana—my other grandmother—just to talk.

"Hey, Frances, this is your dad. I need you to call me back. I love you."

Eight messages to go, and I was already dressed and ready to leave.

"I love you, too, Dad." I left, letting the messages play for no one.

The only way he could have really caught my attention would be to call me Space Monkey.

I went downstairs and Parker did a wolf whistle, which made me feel even more ridiculous in that slutty dress I only bought in the first place for the look on my dad's face (it was priceless.)

Jeph and Dick were gone, so it was just the two of us—a date-type encounter. We had been dancing around the subject of being More Than Just Friends for a while, so I wasn't taken completely by surprise, but the circumstances were a little weird, you know? Still, I didn't mind.

He drove, of course. I've got this _thing_ about cars. I love riding, but I _hate_ driving. I don't know why. I just take after my grandmother that way. We both tend to have panic attacks at the very thought of driving. (Grandmother had a meltdown behind the wheel before I was born and didn't drive again until I was thirteen. I'm more than willing to try to break her record someday.)

But even though Parker drives like a Russian maniac, riding with him didn't stress me out at all.

We only really spoke once during the drive.

"Hey, Space Monkey?"

"Yeah?" I said, still at a loss for a good nickname for him.

"Don't ever let your customers see you cry."

"What?"

"You know what happened when they saw you smile. Just don't let them see you cry."

Food for thought.

When we got to the Iceberg, the first person I saw was Two-Face, with a girl on each arm. I would have turned around and left right then, but Parker kept an arm around me and insisted that we go inside. Two-Face didn't see me, so that was all good.

The requisite snooty French maitre d' looked at us like he'd never seen a couple of college kids before.

"Do you have reservations?"

"Only about the veal," Parker said, and did a cheesy rimshot. The man raised an eyebrow, and I seriously considered hiding my face in shame. "Yes, we have reservations," he said, disappointed when nobody laughed.

"And what is the name?"

"Space Monkey."

"Parker!" I did cover my eyes with my hand this time, half expecting the entire criminal population of Gotham to swoop down from the vaulted ceilings and demand entertainment.

"Right this way, then."

We followed him to a table right next to a massive fountain, where perfectly adorable little penguins and seals played among the miniature icebergs. I had a few minutes of girliness watching the animals frolic, and then I realized that we also had a perfect view of an even more interesting scene.

I saw quite a few of my regulars there, but most of them weren't there to eat.

Parker and I spent most of the meal watching the trickle of commerce between the side entrance and Mr. Cobblepot's office, pointing out the people we recognized and trying to guess the identities of the ones we didn't. It was kind of fun to watch them when I wasn't afraid for my life.

I was still giggling over the fact that Firefly and Mr. Freeze had bumped into each other and nearly caused a Major Scene, and Parker was trying to force me to order dessert when the office door opened and the portly Penguin himself stepped out. I nearly died when I realized he was coming right for us. I just couldn't get away from these guys! For crying out loud, why had I agreed to let Parker take me to this stupid place, I wondered as I watched him waddle toward us with a truly bizarre, penguin-like gait.

He stopped at our table to bid us a good morning, and…you know, for the life of me, I can't remember exactly what he said to us. I found myself utterly fascinated by the _sound_ of his speech—the alliteration, the constant bird puns, the _waugh_s that almost sounded like a form of punctuation. He may well have had the oddest speech patterns I've ever heard, and I can't replicate it no matter how I try.

He _flirted_ with me, and so help me, I was flattered. He's not at all what you would call attractive (and I can write the honest truth even if I would never say it in his hearing.) He was short and rotund with a nose like a dagger (okay, okay, like a beak), he smelled like fish and cigarettes, and he_ quacked_. But the man was surrounded by beautiful, scantily clad henchgirls, and he flirted with me and made me blush. He called me a charming chickadee, which freaked me out a little (Chickadee was my Aunt Sadie's nickname for me when I was a little girl—just coincidence, I hoped! Now, if any of them started calling me Sweet Pea or Chicken Leg—my mom and dad's names for me, respectively—I was going to run away screaming and never come back But Chickadee, I could deal with. For now.)

I was so flustered by the flirting, I ended up telling him about work and how all his fellow rogues were congregating around me. So what did he do but offer to buy the restaurant. Um…yeah. That was a little weird, yes? I told him he would have to talk to my boss about that. But it did sound like rather a nice solution. I mean, surely they wouldn't go around destroying each other's property. Not when there was the whole rest of Gotham to take first.

I also told him to feel free to eat at Lai Lai any time. What can I say, he seemed sane. Relatively.

Parker and I left, eventually. He wasn't jealous. He was a good guy.

On the way back to the dorm, he put a straw in his mouth like the Penguin's cigarette holder and _waugh_ed perfectly, and then he kissed me.

I made him promise never to do his remarkably accurate Penguin impersonation in public. Only for me.

He didn't make any promises about the kissing. Squee.

I didn't make my phone calls.


	12. The Condiment King?

_Author's note: I sat outside the real Lai Lai for a good twenty minutes before I realized I was an hour early. If I repeated what I said to the Nikkums then, I would have to change the rating of this story. Happy Daylight Saving Time Day, everyone!  
_

* * *

I drove to work without dying. It was an amazing accomplishment. Trust me. 

And when I got there, the Parker-free part of my bad day got even worse.

There are some advantages to being soft-spoken, you know. For example, a beef entrée sans drink is $5.88, so when someone orders beef when I'm in a really bad mood, I can say, "Fine, idiot," and they'll just think I'm telling them the price and dismiss me as a mumbler. I only do that on really bad days, though, because I always feel guilty afterwards. After all, my job is to be friendly and polite and _never_ insult the idiots.

Well, this was a _really_ bad day.

How was I supposed to know Dr. Langstrom had hypersensitive hearing?

At least he was human at the time, so he didn't kill me. I wouldn't want to face him in his _other_ form…

Besides Dr. Man-Bat, I had a string of normal people. You'd think that would be better, but you know, at least the villains are smart enough not to act like total douchebags to a person who has such close, personal contact with the stuff they're about to ingest. Not that I would have wanted to spit in the Joker's chow mein, no matter how rude he might have been…but the point is, Gotham's super-criminals weren't rude to me. At least, not nearly as much as the sane folks. Part of that was because I always tried to be friendly and polite to them, and part of it, I think, was that the crazy ones wanted to build a relationship with me. Relationships based on fear, of course—they wanted to keep me at least a _little_ in awe of them—but at least they treated me like something more human than a malfunctioning ATM. Maybe they just realized I wasn't likely to be terrified of some doof who had the nerve to call _me_ an idiot after ordering "Saskatchewan" chicken with "regular" rice.

First of all, REGULAR rice? Is that rice with high goddamn fiber?

And second of all, it's Szechuan. Sez-zhwan. Saskatchewan is in _Canada._

And while I was still fuming from that, some nutcase called the Condiment King came in and demanded a gallon of red sauce. _I_ was seeing red, all right.

"It's called sweet and sour sauce," I said. "Anyone who calls himself the Condiment King should know that!" And then I threw down my ticket book and left.

When my boss finally found me, I was shivering but still in no mood to leave the freezer. It felt better than the heat wave outside, anyway.

But I was feeling guilty about hiding out in there instead of doing my job (and also about the frozen wontons I had smashed…temper, temper.)

We decided that I should take over phone duty, which would be good because I could still see the front and rush to the rescue if any special customers came in, but I wouldn't have to deal with any normals except the ones I could make faces at without getting busted. Yay.

Now, one thing you should know about Lai Lai's phone is that there's a nice metal shelf just above it that's absolutely perfect for head-bangs of frustration. And I made full use of it.

I have a script, you know. Every time I take an order over the phone, I stick to the script. I never deviate. Never, never, never, unless the customer decides to go and screw things up for the both of us.

The script:

Me: Lai Lai, how can I help you?

Customer: I'd like to place an order.

Me: For pick-up or delivery?

Customer: Delivery.

Me: What can I get you?

Customer: Blahdey blah blah chicken.

Me: With steamed or fried rice?

Customer: Blah.

Me: Will that be all?

Customer: Blah.

Me: Can I get your name and phone number?

Customer: Blah blah. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.

Me: And your address?

Customer: Blah blah blah blahdablahdablah. Blahdiddy blah blah. Blah.

Me: Will you be paying cash or credit?

Customer: Credit.

Me: What's the card number?

Customer: Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.

Me: And the expiration date?

Customer: Blah blah, blah blah.

Me: Okay, your total is going to be blah blahdey blah, and it should be there in about forty-five minutes to an hour.

Customer: Thanks.

Me: Thank _you!_

The actual phone conversation:

Me: Lai Lai, how can I help you?

Customer: I want the Two Entrée Special.

(Well, at least he didn't pronounce it "entry.")

Me: Is that for pick-up or delivery?

Customer: Yes.

_Bang._

Me: Which one?

Customer: The Two Entrée Special.

_Bang._

Me: Pick-up or delivery?

Customer: Oh. Delivery.

Me: Okay. And what would you like?

Customer: John.

_Bang._

Me: Okay, John. What would you like to order?

John: The Two Entrée Special.

(Long pause.)

Me: Okay…

John: My phone number is 246-3718.

_Bang._

Me: Okay. What would you _like?_

John: What?

Me: Your _order?_

John: The Two Entrée Special.

_Bang._

Me: What entrées do you want?

John: 42 Watermelon Road.

_Bang._

Me: What would you like to eat?

John: I'm paying with a credit card.

_Bang._

Me: Okay, what's the number?

John: Blah blah blah blah.

_Bang._

John: Blah blah blah blah.

_Bang._

John: Blah blah blah blah.

_Bang._

John: Blah blah blah blah.

_Bang._

Me: And the expiration date?

John: Blah blah, blah blah.

Me: Okay. And what would you like to order?

John: …the Two Entrée Special.

_Bang._

Me: Which entrees?

John: What's the total?

_Bang._

Me: What!

_Bang._

Me: Would!

_Bang._

Me: You!

_Bang._

Me: Like!

_Bang._

Me: To!

_Bang._

Me: Eat!

John: What?

_Bang._

Me: The Two Entrée Special comes with _two entrees._ I need you to make a choice here, John.

John: Ohhhhh…Hey, Tim, what entrees do you want?

_Bang._ (Tim was a regular. He knew how to order, and I don't know why he didn't just do it himself that day.)

John: Sesame chicken and sweet and sour chicken.

Me: With steamed or fried rice?

John: Tim, you want steamed or fried rice?

_Bang._

John: Fried rice.

Me: And what would you like to drink?

John: What do you want to drink?

_Bang bang bang._

John: Mountain Dew.

Me: Will-that-be-all-your-total-is-$9.72-that-should-be-there-in-about-forty-five-minutes-to-an-hour.

I hung up. At high velocity.

I was taken off phone duty and moved to the deep fryer. That, by the way, was the opposite of a good idea. Well, at least my tofu mishap didn't scar anyone.

The last Lai Lai employee who had an accident with the deep fryer was Blake, a delivery guy who left shortly after I started working there. It was because of him that our poor cook was brutally maimed. He looked better than Two-Face, but a little worse than Scarface. Tragic, really.

But my exploding tofu didn't injure anyone but myself, and all it did was whang my arm and make me curse a little.

I was removed from deep fryer duty.

We decided this was as good a time as any for me to become a delivery driver. The other guy had only left one order behind, and it was pretty close. I was fairly sure I could find it.

I did not choose to share any information about my little phobia. At the time, I felt anything was better than staying in there. Besides, delivery orders tip better. So I walked out into Gotham's muggy false summer, picturing a map in my mind, marking the location of Bent Tree Apartments. My sense of direction…not so great. But this, I told myself, was going to be easy.

Nothing exploded when I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing fell out when I put my foot to the gas pedal. The traffic was light, for Gotham, and all the other drivers seemed to be trying not to kill me. In fact, the only problem at all was that the air conditioner wasn't blowing cool air, and I could live with that. For a little while there, I actually believed that I could make my delivery without dying _or _having a panic attack.

And then my car started laughing at me.

I just took my foot off the gas and coasted for a couple of seconds while a Jokery "HA HA HA HA! HEE HEE HEE HEE! HO HO HO HO! HOO HOO HOO HOO!" blasted from somewhere underneath me. Then I looked up and saw the sign for Bent Tree and decided that if I could just get there before my imminent demise, everything would be fine. Yeah. But first I had to stop at a red light.

The second I hit the brakes, the car went _chuggity-chuggity-chuggity-die._

I totally panicked.

The car kept laughing.

"I'll give you a dollar not to do whatever you're about to do to me," I babbled.

It kept laughing.

Then people started honking, and I realized the light was green. What could I do but restart the car? Despite the laughter, the engine didn't sound too happy with the way I was treating it.

So I bumped over a curb and turned into something resembling a parking space in the Bent Tree lot, and the car went _chuggity-chuggity-chuggity-rattle-rattle_ and I ripped the keys out of the ignition and it still kept laughing, and I had the food and was halfway across the parking lot before I took another breath.

I guess I must have knocked on the door, but I don't actually remember that part. The next thing I remember, I was lying on the ground, still not breathing, I felt a weird tingling in my hands, and the _Scarecrow_ was standing over me, asking me if I had asthma.

"No," I said. (As it turned out, I actually did, but it hadn't been diagnosed yet because of that whole ignore-it-and-maybe-it-will-go-away philosophy.)

Then he put an inhaler in my mouth and told me to hold my breath and count to ten.

_One, two…(what kind of idiot are you?)_

_Three, four…(this isn't funny anymore!)_

_Five, six…(you've fallen for their tricks.)_

_Seven, eight…(and now it's too late.)_

_Nine, ten…(but then again…)_

I sat up, breathing just fine and nowhere near my previous state of panic.

"What was that?" I demanded.

"Just a new toxin I've been working on. How do you feel?"

"Like kicking your ass!" I thought about that. "But I still want to feed you."

"Do you, now?" He helped me up.

"Yeah. You look hungry." He led me inside, sat me down on a sofa that was pretty obviously not his, and took out his notebook and pencil. He asked me questions, and I marveled at his ability to write with his right hand and use chopsticks with his left.

"Describe your emotional state before you came here."

"A little angry at my stupid customers. Confused, because I don't know how to deal with _you_ guys. Also confused because I think my best friend just turned into my boyfriend, and that's just weird. Upset, because my great-grandmother just died, and I'll never get to say goodbye. Annoyed, because the Joker gave me a present I never asked for, and I can't give it back or not use it because you just don't offend the Joker; he's scarier than _you._" He looked amused by that. "And of course I was freaking out because I have a deep-seated fear of driving, and that car is freaking _insane._"

"Yes? And how do you feel now?"

"Still angry. But mostly confused, now." A little kitten appeared from nowhere and started climbing up the Scarecrow's pants leg. He let out the cutest sound of alarm and tried to pry it away. Watching him squirm and dance was the funniest thing I've ever seen. I couldn't help giggling hysterically.

"Have you lost your fear entirely?" he asked, still fighting the kitty (and losing the battle, poor guy.)

"Yeah, I think so." I reached out and gently pulled the kitten away from his leg and held it in my lap. "Who's this little cutie? I can't see you as a cat owner."

"The woman who owns this apartment is a Crazy Cat Lady who firmly believes the myth that Chinese food is made of stray cats."

"So you ordered Lai Lai just so you'd have another way to scare her?" He nodded. "And it had nothing to do with you being addicted to the ginger sauce." The kitten wrapped its little legs around my arm and started playfully biting me and scratching me with its cute little claws. I pulled my hand away, was mildly surprised by the amount of blood, and immediately went back to scratching its tummy. And it went back to slicing me up. "What _did _you do to me?"

"I took your fear away. You must let me know how it feels when it begins to wear off, Space Monkey." He reached out and took the kitten away from me before it could bite me all the way down to the bone.

"I wish you wouldn't call me that." And I wished he would give my cuddly kitty friend back. Somehow I didn't care just then that it only wanted to hurt me.

"Why? Are you frightened by the reminder that the Joker is stalking you?"

"Most of the time, yes. But I also don't like having a private nickname appropriated by the entire Evil Population of this city." Another kitty came slinking into the room, and I reached down to pick it up. The Scarecrow stopped my hands.

"Not that one," he said seriously. I pouted. All I wanted to do was snuggle with something. I'm not sure Professor Crane realized how dangerously close _he_ was to being glomped.

He sent me to wash my hands in the bathroom, where I met little Mrs. Fitzwalter, tied up in the bathtub and moaning in terror. I patted her shoulder comfortingly and left a bloody handprint behind. It didn't occur to me to help her escape. Being fear-free does funny things to your mind.

My delivery driver swung by to pick me up on his way back to Lai Lai. I waved goodbye to the Scarecrow, thanked him for getting me a ride, and promised to take notes for him as soon as I felt the effects of his toxin start to wear off.

He didn't believe me. He showed up at the restaurant about an hour later with a strange little smile on his face and took a seat in an out-of-the-way corner to watch me. I didn't care. Nothing was bothering me then.

Sally got out of the hospital that day. She came looking for me, saw the Scarecrow, got this look like a deer in headlights, and walked right back out again. I found that hilarious.

I was still laughing about that when the Joker and his girlfriend came in. I stopped laughing fast. He seemed surprised to see me for the first time without a smile on my face.

"What's the matter, Space Monkey? Didn't like the car?"

"It laughed at me," I said. Gravelly doom!

"That's the warning system. I don't like idiot lights. I like something a little more…cheerful."

I glared at him.

"It _laughed_ at me! You made the car _laugh_ at me!"

He and the Scarecrow glanced at each other; obviously, they had been chatting.

"What's the big deal, S.M.? It just overheated."

"I have a _phobia,_ you psychotic _clown_—"

You know what? The toxin didn't wear off. It just ran out of me all at once.

I realized I was _screaming_ at the Joker, and ran off to hide again in the freezer. This time, nobody came looking for me for a good little while.

I think I may have been in the early stages of hypothermia when I was summoned to answer the phone.

My dad had called me. At work. Perfect. Just perfect.

"Hello?" I said, trying to stay out of the customers' line of sight.

"Hey, Fran. Are you busy?"

"Well, I'm at work," I said. Then I realized that he already knew that. I was a little too distracted to carry on a decent conversation with my father, but telling him the reason why would only make him worry about me more.

"Did you get my messages?"

"Um…yeah. Sorry. I was going to call you back tomorrow." He let out a little sigh.

"Okay, babe. So are you going to be able to go to Nana's funeral?"

"_What_?" I said, and then burst into hysterical tears and giggles at the same time. Tears because it was my _Nana_, the grandmother who loved me more than anything, and this was right on the heels of my Maw-Maw's death, and I hadn't even known she was _sick,_ and I had planned to call her just to talk and then I hadn't done it.

Giggles, because, holy crap, what a way to find out.

Distantly, I heard my dad trying to un-say what he had just said. I said nothing to him. I just cried into the phone.

Then I looked up and saw _them_, all of them, staring at me, and I realized that I was doing exactly what Parker had told me not to do.

I hung up on Dad—I could bloody well call him back _later_—and started to go back to the freezer. But the phone rang again. I looked around…everyone else was busy…so I answered.

"Lai Lai…how can I help you?" I sounded like I was crying. It's one thing to cry over the phone, but quite another thing to _sound_ like it. I did my best to fight down the hysterics, wondering if someone was going to come up behind me and pump me full of some kind of drug to take away the emotions again.

"Can I place an order?"

"For pick-up or delivery?"

I never heard the answer, because that's when I had the stroke. Apparently, the Scarecrow's toxin had some unexpected physical side effects. Isn't that just freaking swell?


	13. The End

So, that's the end of my story. I stayed in the hospital for quite some time. I got a lot of flowers. I still have the ones Poison Ivy sent me. They're a little more talkative than I like my houseplants to be, but it's nothing I can't deal with.

Parker kept eating at Lai Lai while I was away. He had all kinds of neat stories to tell me about those two days before the place burned to the ground.

Some guy who looked like Vincent Price came in and ordered Egg Foo Young. Parker insists that I should be impressed by that. I have no idea why, but he's _very_ insistent, and I just can't argue with him.

They got a couple of very strange guys who called each other Clown and Demon. Parker says I would have _liked_ this Clown. I'm not sure I believe him.

Parker also says the God of Dreams came through, but didn't eat; he was just looking for someone else. Parker says I would have liked this guy, too. I believe him about the liking, but I'm not so sure I believe there is a God of Dreams, much less that he (He?) would have come to a Chinese restaurant, for any reason.

And of course all my regulars came in and asked about me.

The Joker decided to cut me some slack since my little breakdown had been caused by the Scarecrow and not my own lack of humor. I think he liked seeing my giggle even when I was sobbing with grief.

The Scarecrow apologized for having created a substandard toxin. Jerk. I notice there was no apology forthcoming for my _pain._ But I guess that's to be expected.

To replace me, they re-hired a cashier from before my time. She tried to re-initiate the old Lai Lai Ninja Skills Game, which involved stealth, Sharpies, and bare elbows. This time around, no one reacted very well to having someone constantly trying to sneak up on them to write on their elbows. She got a pan of soup to the face.

They didn't have time to hire another cashier. Lai Lai burned to the ground in the middle of the night. No one was hurt. But Gotham lost the greatest Chinese restaurant ever to grace its dark streets. (Funny story—the ink was barely dry on Mr. Cobblepot's deed and insurance papers. He came off well, even if no one else did.)

When I got out of the hospital, I found myself out of a job. Parker suggested I go back to work at Waffle House.

His words: "You can never escape the Collective, Space Monkey."

My reply: "How do you know about the Collective?!" (Actually, at Waffle House, my name was Sarge. It's…not important why.)

I work at the library now. It's much easier on me. I almost never see any of _them_. The Mad Hatter comes in every once in a while to read—we have a whole room decorated like the inside of his head, and I think I'm the only one who realizes that he doesn't belong there. The Scarecrow comes here sometimes, too, just to check up on me. He's still interested in the long-term effects of his toxins. He also likes that I'm always able to point him toward whatever book he needs.

Even the Riddler came in once to use the computer lab.

I haven't seen the Joker, so I don't know how he feels about my hair. Maybe he's stopped watching me entirely. Or maybe he doesn't mind that the green has all faded out, leaving me bleach-blonde with three-inch-long dark roots. I might do something else with it, or I might just let it go. I'm not all that interested in looking cool these days. Too much chance I'll end up copying someone by mistake.

You know, the Joker _might_ still be watching me. I can't really be sure. Just last week, one of my professors utterly humiliated me in front of my lit class. He was later found bludgeoned to death in the alley behind what used to be Lai Lai. The murder weapon—a bloodstained bag of sugar—was left nearby. Hey, he wasn't a very nice guy. Maybe it had nothing to do with me.

Yeah.

I haven't found a Chinese restaurant to replace Lai Lai, but I don't really want Chinese food as much as I used to. And that's the real tragedy here.

My dad understands. I make a point of calling him every Saturday, just to talk. He says next time he comes to visit me, he's going to help me find some good Mexican food. And that makes me think of Smallville once again. I did so love eating at Tamale Casa…

Parker's not that into Mexican, but every so often, he takes me back to the Iceberg. No matter how busy they are, there's always a table for the Space Monkeys.

He drives. I ride. And life is good.

* * *

_Author's note: This may be my last posting until December. November is National Novel Writing Month, and I will be busy. Feel free to look me up on the NaNoWriMo forums--my name is EauDeDarkestKnight._

_Thanks for reading!_

_Lurve,_

_3.0_


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